This book is dedicated to the voices in my head, the most remarkable of my friends.
And to my wife, who lives with us.
— Fredrik Backman, the opening dedication to his new book titled “Anxious People: A Novel” (Atria Books, September 8, 2020)
Notes:
Thinking about swifts has made me think more carefully about the ways in which I’ve dealt with difficulty. When I was small I comforted myself with thoughts of layers of rising air; later I hid myself among the whispers of recorded works of fiction. We all have our defences. Some of them are self-defeating, but others are occasions for joy: the absorption of a hobby, the writing of a poem, speeding on a Harley, the slow assembly of a collection of records or seaside shells. ‘The best thing for being sad,’ said T. H. White’s Merlin, ‘is to learn something.’ All of us have to live our lives most of the time inside the protective structures that we have built; none of us can bear too much reality. We need our books, our craft projects, our dogs and knitting, our movies, gardens and gigs. It’s who we are. We’re held together by our lives, our interests, and all our chosen comforts. But we can’t have only those things, because then we can’t work out where we should be headed.
— Helen Macdonald, Vesper Flights (Grove Press, August 25, 2020)
Photo Salvi Danes, (Barcelona) (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)
Like a bird with a broken wing
that has traveled through wind for years.
like a bird unable to endure
tempest and wind
the evening falls…
Now I long for a little quiet
all I want is a hunt on a hill
or near a seashore
all I want in front of my window…
The evening would fall
the flocks would echo descending to their fold
like some quiet simple happy thought
and I would lie down to sleep
because I wouldn’t have
even a candle to light,
light,
to read.
— George Seferis, from “Five Poems by Mr. S. Thalassinos” from “Hampstead” in George Seferis: Collected Poems, 1924-1955
Notes:
We are looking for new spaces, but what we are really looking for is retreat, clarity, to escape our internal chaos.
For the days not to feel glued together.
— Kate Zambreno, Drifts: A Novel (Penguin, May 19, 2020)
Notes:
Source: Hartley Lin (formerly known by the pseudonym Ethan Rilly) is a cartoonist based in Montreal, Canada. Young Frances, the first collection from his ongoing comic book Pope Hats, won the 2019 Doug Wright Award for Best Book. He has drawn for The New Yorker, The Hollywood Reporter, Slate, Taddle Creek and HarperCollins. (via thisisn’thappiness)
Where does it start? Muscles tense. One leg a pillar, holding the body upright between the earth and sky. The other a pendulum, swinging from behind. Heel touches down. The whole weight of the body rolls forward onto the ball of the foot. The big toe pushes off, and the delicately balanced weight of the body shifts again. The legs reverse position. It starts with a step and then another step and then another that add up like taps on a drum to a rhythm, the rhythm of walking. The most obvious and the most obscure thing in the world, this walking that wanders so readily into religion, philosophy, landscape, urban policy, anatomy, allegory, and heartbreak.
— Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (Penguin Books (June 1, 2001)
Photo: Bjorn Breimo, Walking (Norway)
“1 a.m.: Lie here then. Just lie here. What of it? It’s just lying here. Think of good things… Try to calm the banging heart.”
— Samantha Harvey, The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping (Grove Press; May 12, 2020)
Notes:
It is astonishing how violently a big branch shakes when a silly little bird has left it.
~ Katherine Mansfield, from “Alors, je pars.” in Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield
Photo of Common Redpoll (male) by Larissa Datsha
WFH. (Work From Home). No shoes. No socks. Chained to the desk. Lower back groans.
HBR: “The risk is substantial. The lines between work and non-work are blurring… (those) who feel “on” all the time are at a higher risk of burnout when working from home than if they were going to the office as usual.”
I pause for a few page turns of Yiyun Li, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life: “being caught by the mesh of one’s mind.”
Friday Night. 11:30 pm. Everyone in bed – but me. I’ve shifted positions, from desk to couch. I’m clearing out a swollen email box. 214. 210. 198. 175. 143. 138. 117. 18 hours. Calls. Conference Calls. Conference Calls. Conference Calls. 110. 108. 106. 104. 101. 99.
Get up to stretch. Walk to the kitchen. Grab a ramekin. Scoop out 3 heaping tablespoons of Talenti, tamp it down, lean in on the spoon again, add another scoop. Today, Talenti for late breakfast, for dinner, and again, now, at midnight. Mint Chocolate chip. Close eyes. Gelato slides down throat, soothing. The only thing that is.
88. 85. 84. 83. Losing focus. Re-reading same email 2x. Replies are littered with spelling mistakes. Autocorrect, correcting incorrectly. F-** it. I send it anyway. Does it really matter. Lose. Loose. Lose.
81. 79. 64.
Back to Yiyun Li. “Even the most inconsistent person is consistently himself.”
63. 62. 59. 57. 56. 54. 53. Li: “Wanting nothing is as extreme as wanting everything.”
50. 47. 43. 41. Li: “Did we ever ask ourselves: Why are we so lonely, so proud, and so adamant about perfecting our pretense?”
40. 39. 38. 37. 34. 32. Li: “we are, unlike other species, capable of not only enlarging but also diminishing our precarious selves”
30. 29. 27. I’m closing in on clearing my cue, but like Sisyphus, the closer I get to zero, the steeper the hill seems to get.
26. 25. 24. 23. Neck aches. I mean aches. I turn, twist to adjust my position. 23 left. Come on. Bring it home.
I stare at the remaining cue. And stare. And stare.
And quit.
I gently set my iPhone on night stand. Twist in the earbuds, skim to find Chill Playlist, and hit Play. But Yiyun Li can’t help herself, and lip syncs over it.
…the worst kind of fidgeting is that of one’s mind…I wonder…—not that one has known…but that one knows…This ceaseless effort—
Notes: Photo – Shibari & Photo Geoffroy Tako Baud. Model Lafille Delair (via Newthom)
5:33 am. Friday morning.
Google Maps signals 17 minutes to destination. Smooth ride, cruising down I-95 South. Truckers, insomniacs, and DK listening to Audible, his book on tape. More Terry Tempest Williams, her new book, Erosion: Essays of Undoing. Terry’s way in my head, and beyond, and yes, we’re on a first name basis now. “Our undoing is also our becoming. I have come to believe this is a good thing.”
The Heads-up Display on the windshield flashes alert: Object ahead on highway. It flashes an alert again. I tap the brakes.
A wind gust blows leaves across three lanes. I exhale. Wonders of technology. Car warns you about objects on highway, or if you veer outside your lane. I’m listening to books on tape, beamed from the cloud. GPS tells me how long to the office. And I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday.
The car wobbles over uneven pavement. 4000 pounds of car, wearing grooves into the asphalt, with my back and forth 4-5 days a week.
Read somewhere from a survey that 85% of us wished to travel more. And that one in 10 Americans surveyed say they have no interest in going anywhere. Welcome readers, to Me, I’m on top of this stack of 10. [Read more…]
